To buy or not to buy

Or more accurately, to buy or to lease again, that is the question!

Back in May 2021 I blogged about a Tesla Model 3 test drive, which very shortly afterwards became a Tesla Model 3 delivery day and led to a Tesla road trip blog later that year.  Almost 3 years later, our Tesla Model 3 lease is almost up, and we must make some future motoring decisions.

We’ve done 17,747 miles in Lexee (yes, you get to name your Tesla and it was leased through Lex and my daughter is called Katee).  Other than some inconsiderate Mercedes driver putting a large dint in the rear wing in a car park (which was repaired at the beginning of this year) we’ve had almost 3 years of trouble-free, and incredibly cheap motoring.  Lexee was serviced by Tesla after 2 years, but that was done exactly as shown in the picture, on our drive, where a Tesla Service Technician visited and replaced the pollen filter and carried out some minor checks.  The tyres are still fine, although I’m hoping we might get them replaced before the lease ends if we do decide to buy.  We’ve spent around £600 on electricity, which is crazy compared to how much we spent on petrol in the previous car(s).  Some of that is down to free charging, both locally and at work for the first 18 months.  We also have a home charger, and an ‘agile’ tariff which allows us to pick and choose when to charge based on the cheapest rate, so only £130 of the total.  Most of the £600 is when we’ve taken Lexee on holiday, travelling down to the Northeast of England quite often, down to London and Yorkshire a few times, and around Scotland more frequently.  During the last 2+ years, we’ve had countless software upgrades, which have added new functionality to the car and fixed some minor issues.  I can honestly say, that the only thing that still irritates me about Lexee is the automatic windscreen wipers, which are hopeless, but given some of my previous cars didn’t even do this, it’s a small price to pay.

I’ve owned cars (I blogged about them here) that have all done one of two things better than Lexee (apart from perhaps the acceleration) but as an overall package, nothing comes close.  The Tesla Model 3 is an incredible car and one I’m more than happy to continue driving.  We had another test drive in a Model Y back in 2022 when they first came out, and it’s a very similar driving experience.  My conclusion was that from a driver’s perspective, the Model 3 is a better car, but from a passenger perspective the Model Y probably edges it.  We also hired a Model Y on a road trip around the Northeast of America and Canada last summer.  We flew in and out of JFK, and travelled down to Philadelphia and Washington DC, before heading up to Niagara, Toronto, and Montreal, swinging back via Boston and Stamford.  We (I) drove almost 2000 miles and the experience couldn’t have been better.  We never waited for a charge.  We generally needed to stop before the car, and it cost $140 including tolls (excluding the $1,200 for the car)

As you might know, Tesla has just updated the Model 3 (the aptly named ‘Highland’ project) just in time for our lease ending in June.  After reading and watching far too many reviews, there was only one thing for it.  Another Tesla test drive!  It was just me and Katee last weekend when we headed down the M9 to Edinburgh trying to take in all the noises and bumps, so we could compare on the test drive.  We had the choice of a red or grey standard-range version.  Katee picked red before I’d even had a chance to think!  She drove in the front for the first half of the journey and then switched to the back for the return leg, although was a little disappointed the rear screen wasn’t working.

 The biggest difference is the lack of stalks behind the steering wheel.  My Model 3 has 2 stalks – the left one for indicating and a wiper button, the right one for selecting drive and cruise controls.  The Highland version has these controls on the steering wheel and the drive controls on the screen and above your head by the courtesy lights.  Selecting drive wasn’t a problem as we did this once on the trip.  I think you can set it, so it tries to select this automatically too.  The indicators were more of an issue, and while I’m sure it’s something you’d get used to, I can’t help feeling it would alienate some non-Tesla drivers from switching.   Every car I’ve owned had stalks for indicators, so it does feel strange and unnatural, even though it never felt much of a problem.  The only area where the Highland model didn’t feel ‘a little better than my Model 3 was the acceleration, although given that the test car was a standard-range single-motor version and we have the long-range dual-motor version, it’s a bit of an unfair comparison.  The standard range is still more than fast enough for a family saloon, but the ~4-second 0-60 time of the LR model never tires.  

But yes, everything else was just a little better.  It was a little quieter.  It was a little more comfortable.  The screen and responsiveness was a little faster.  The interior trim felt a little better and the seats a little more comfortable.  It has a nice interior light around the car (which you can change the colour) and the seats are heated AND ventilated.  The screen in the back would have perhaps sold it for Katee, but even she felt it wasn’t a compelling enough improvement to retire Lexee.  And she is absolutely right!

I’m hoping we might get to buy Lexee for around £25k.  Similar spec and mileage cars are selling on Autotrader for over £28k, so it seems like a reasonable offer, and we know the car has been looked after (I clean it every 2-4 weeks). Leasing a new one looks like it would cost more than the previous deal, which worked out around £500/month after the salary sacrifice and tax implications.  Another long-range would be at least £125/month more and even a standard range would be around £40/month more.  We’d have to factor in things like insurance, road tax, maintenance, etc. if we bought Lexee (they were all covered in the lease) but it’s probably not that much more than the monthly lease costs when you add in the cost of the car.  We’d still own Lexee in 3 years, whereas we’d be back in this same solution if we leased again.

We still have another few months to decide, and a few longer trips to do.  I’m heading down to Banbury in a few weeks to see friends and we’re back down to the Northeast for Easter.  We’re also considering a European road-trip holiday for the summer, which might be more difficult in a new lease car than it would our own Tesla.  I’ll let you know what we decided to do over the summer, probably as part of a road trip blog…

Whisky Geek

I’ve blogged a few times about whisky here, but I think it’s fair to say my interest has grown significantly in the 2-year gap between my last two blogs!  I can’t recall the exact order these things happened, but there were a number of triggers to me becoming somewhat of a whisky geek.

The Scotch Malt Whisky Society (SMWS)

For my 50th birthday, a good friend (and my old dive buddy) bought me a membership to The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, or SMWS for short.  I’d never heard of it, but it’s probably best described as a whisky club with about 40,000 members worldwide.  They’ve been bottling whisky for 40 years (2023 was their 40th birthday) and also have private members clubs in various locations, of which three are conveniently located in Glasgow (Bath Street) and Edinburgh (Queen Street and The Valuts, their spiritual home).  The whisky is all bottled at cask strength and is very different from the typical dram I’d been drinking in the past.  I’ve visited all three clubs numerous times and bought several bottles. I try to pick these up when on offer, but I also look out for specific distillery bottlings. Their naming makes it somewhat of a challenge to know where each bottle is from.  Luckily, this can be found quite easily online, and there’s also quite a nice free App. My most recent bottle was from the January Outturn – 84.26 Uptown Funk You Sup. See if you can work out where it’s from?

Whisky Tasting

Along with visits to the SMWS, I’ve started attending a few whisky-tasting sessions. I think this started online during lockdown, where a small group of friends did some Zoom calls where we’d bought each other the same samples from an online retailer (quite often Masters of Malt). We covered whisky, rum, vodka, and red wine, but we knew what we were drinking, and it was more about the social interaction we were missing than the drinks themself!

One of those friends, who lives in the nearest village, decided to continue this post-COVID at a local bar that runs blind whisky tasting a few times a year. Du Vin Bouchers is a small wine bar on the High Street and probably only holds about 30-40 people, but the blind whisky tastings are a fantastic way of trying new whisky and meeting some like-minded people. The best ones have been hosted by the Jolly Topper, who you can follow on Twitter/X @jolly_toper. His knowledge of whisky and tasting style is excellent. He’s also the manager of the Royal Mile Whisky shop in Edinburgh, which I can recommend if you’re looking for a great place to try and buy whisky!

It was one of these whisky tastings where the seed of collecting whisky was planted in my brain. The table we sat on had another group of whisky geeks who all had substantial whisky collections and shared samples. This really sparked something in me, which I’ll go into a little more below.

Youtube

At the same time, I’ve been watching more YouTube, where there is a great online whisky community. There are far too many whisky geek Youtubers to mention, although if you are looking for somewhere to start, you can’t go wrong with Ralfy! His videos are approachable and contain excellent information, which has helped me explore whisky further. The community is quite strong, so watching one of Ralfy’s videos will invariably pop up recommendations for other whisky Youtubers. The Online Scotch Whisky Awards, or OSWAs, would be another great starting point. 2023 was their third year, set up by Ralfy and Roy, who runs the Aqvavitae channel and is heavily involved in the Dramface website, another great online whisky resource.

Whisky Collection

Online reviews, along with further reading (both online and offline), have been the main source for my growing whisky collection. I think this consisted of 3-4 open bottles back in 2016 when I first blogged about whisky here, and I currently have 13 open bottles, 84 closed bottles, and 34 samples. The samples are anything from 20ml distillery bottles to 20cl bottles of something I’ve finished but wanted to keep to try again at a later date. There are also 50ml samples that have been shared with family and friends and who have also reciprocated!

I also discovered Whiskybase, a great online tool for finding more about whisky and cataloguing a collection and history online. You can check out mine here, and feel free to invite me as a friend so I can see what you’re enjoying, too. I think this is when you realise you’ve become a whisky geek. I suspect the numbers above may have changed by the time you visit, but here are some screenshots from a few days ago.

 

 

 

 

The Open bottles

 

 

 

 

Some of the Closed bottles

If you’ve read any of my previous whisky blogs, you will have read about my friend who worked for Pernod Richard (PR). Sadly for me, he no longer works there, so the regular discounted birthday and Christmas whisky is no more. That said, the more integrity-presented whisky I’m buying and drinking as a whisky geek (46% ABV+, non-chill filtered and natural colour) isn’t well covered by their distilleries. This and my growing interest made those special occasion bottles a little more expensive for my partner! She bought two of the most expensive bottles in my collection – a Glendronarch Parliament 21yo for my 50th birthday and a Hazelburn 2010 12yo for the past Christmas. My budget has also been steadily growing, with me adding a few £100+ whiskies to add to the collection this year – an anCnoc 24yo and a Signatory Vintage Glenlivet 16yo to commemorate Ralphy’s 1000th Youtube Review!

In drafting this blog, I’ve also started 2024 with some rather extravagant purchases, even though a New Year’s resolution was to try and spend less! One of my favourite whiskies ever was a 16yo Scapa I got through the PR friend above. These are now selling for £200+, but I’d been tempted a few times last year. When I saw that The Whisky Exchange has an exclusive 19yo Scapa at Cask Strength from the distillery, I couldn’t resist, even though it was £185. Then, just a few days later, one of the newest distilleries in Scotland and the one most local to me – Falkirk Distillery – put their Inaugural Release up for sale. There are only 640 of them, and while I wasn’t expecting the £190 price tag, I didn’t feel I could miss out on owning one of the very first bottles from this new distillery, just 6 miles away!  The SMWS also seduced me with a cheap bottle and Master of Malt had an offer for two Aberlour A’Bunadh’s (batch 79 and 80) that I just couldn’t turn down!  I’d also picked up a couple of bottles from Just Whisky, an online auction site I’ve been watching for some months, but never actually won anything.  I added another Hazelburn (this one a 2008 15yo) and a cheaper Arran, and collected them from just the otherside of the Forth!  None of these are in the screenshots above, but are listed in my Whiskybase collection here.

Anyway, that’s a bit of an update on my whisky geek journey, which is still probably less than 10 years old. I’m sure it will take more than another 10 years to get through my closed bottles, especially if I keep adding to them at the rate I’ve started this year!

Slàinte

Tesla trip to Skye

It’s been almost a month since our first Tesla trip to Skye, and while I had good intentions of blogging about the experience while I was there, I really didn’t have the time or inclination. So this is going to be a kind of flashback, with some of the highs and lows of our first long Tesla trip to Skye.

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